This is my second article (Click HERE to read first article) on Civil Services Preparation strategy. In this article we’ll focus on WHAT TO DO AND HOW DO GO ABOUT IT IN PRELIMS. I will share some suggestions that I feel could really help you. Not all of these suggestions will be exactly suitable to you. You can modify some suggestions to suit your own style/approach. I will attempt at giving a broad framework or strategy rather than the specifics. Feel free to tweak the framework if you deem it rational.

1). PRELIMS:

This is the only part of my preparation where I did not make any mistake. I have cleared all 4 of Prelims comfortably. I think certain steps if followed will be very useful:-

a). Reserve 2-3 months (as per your situation) exclusively for prelims. Apart from 1-2 hours for optional every day, the rest of these 2-3 months should be devoted entirely for prelims. All your late nights with Optional subject, Ethics etc depends on the easily believable but very treacherous assumption that you will clear prelims. The success rate is nearly 1 in 40. Your prelims preparation should be such that you are never be in doubt that you will clear prelims. Else this nagging doubt will lower your tempo whenever you are studying for mains.

b). CONTENT:-

i)Polity- Laxmikanth ONLY

ii). History – Bipin Chandra is the best. But if it feels too long, then go for Spectrum. However read Bipin Chandra Pal at least once. It is also very helpful for mains. For Ancient and Medieval India, I feel the old NCERT books are best. But here, a word of caution. Do not memorize dates, minor historical figures etc. UPSC does not ask these. It asks major ISSUES or CONCEPTS. For instance “who brought gunpowder, land surveying etc in india – prelims 2014, I think). So study ancient and medieval history BROADLY, NOT IN MINOR DETAIL.

iii). Economy – I read Sriram’s printed notes along with using the net and found it sufficient. I have heard Vajiram and NCERT Class xi and xii are also good. BUT DO NOT TRY TO READ ALL THREE. REMEMBER, LESS IS MORE IN UPSC PREPARATION.

iv). Geography – NCERT Class 9 to 12(new ones). Concentrate on the boxed articles. This should be enough. Utilize the net for areas you feel are important.

v). Environment – Shankar’s IAS. A very good book. But this is not enough for Environment considering the fact that around 13-14 questions are asked from this topic. So while reading Shankar ias, if you feel that a mentioned term or concept could be important, look it up the net. Here too go about it smartly. Read the first two paragraphs of wiki on that topic. Do NOT try to read the whole wiki page. . Bookmark it for revision. Follow this approach for all such terms, concepts etc that you come across in current affairs etc even for topics other than Environment.

vi). Art and Culture – Perhaps the worst part. I found Nitin Singhania’s handwritten notes quite useful. But also focus on those chapters of old NCERT Ancient and Medieval India history books that contain art and culture topics.

vii). Current affairs – Revise from Vision Ias(primarily) and insightsonindia compilations of monthly news from March to July. Do not try to read The Hindu etc for same reason as mentioned earlier (scattered knowledge, time taking etc).

It is highly likely that the Prelims this year onwards will be highly competitive and dicey with CSAT no longer in the picture( I sympathize with my brother engineers in their hour of grief). Selection will be a matter of 2-3 questions. Hence it is essential that you extract as much as you can from your preparation.I feel that 3 startegies will come in quite handy. Feel free to tweak them to suit your approach.

i). As mentioned earlier, simply joining a test series will do nothing other than giving a false sense of satisfaction. UTILIZE EACH TEST. Join a test series. I would personallyrecommendinsightsonindia Prelims test series because of the superior quality of the questions. Next comes the important part. After giving a test, GO THROUGH THE SOLUTIONS IN DETAIL. Even if you have answered a question correctly go through all the options, because you may have answered that question by eliminating options, rather than knowing all the options completely. The questions in the test series and in UPSC Prelims will be RELATED, NOT IDENTICAL.I personally gave five to six hours for analysis of solutions per test paper (Insights). If you feel that something mentioned in an option deserves to be studied more deeply, then look it up the net. But again, not in detail. First two paragraphs on wiki should suffice. The major advantage of this strategy is that you will end up with good enough knowledge over a huge range of topics. This will be of immense importance in INTELLIGENT GUESSING. Even in this Prelims(scored 140 in GS), I was absolutely sure of only around fifty questions. The rest (around 40) were intelligent/hopefully intelligent guessing. And INTELLIGENT GUESSING is a must in Prelims.

ii). KNOW YOUR OPTIMUM – As mentioned earlier, this time Prelims will be a matter of 2-3 questions. Thus it becomes vital that you know very closely HOW MANY ATTEMPTS WILL SECURE YOU THE MAXIMUM MARKS. The number will vary from individual to individual and you need to find yours. The way to do this is simple. Pick up a test. First attempt around sixty questions. Calculate your marks. Attempt five more(in the same test). Now calculate your marks.Keep increasing by five questions and record your marks till you have attempted all 100 questions. Remember do all this for the same test. Now compare your marks. Do this for five to six tests but of slightly different difficulty levels. You will arrive at a range of questions attempted that fetch you the highest marks for different difficulty levels of test papers.In UPSC Prelims try to stick to your optimum range as per difficulty level of the paper. This will eliminate the risk of attempting too few or too many questions in UPSC Prelims. And do not get influenced by how much others attempt. Remember you, your style and approach are unique. You know yourself better than anyone else.

iii). As mentioned earlier, it is important to have a broad understanding of a wide variety of issues. For this follow the approach given in point i) above. Read from the net( first 2 paras of wiki) for various topics to enable you to do intelligent guessing.

I genuinely feel that following the above strategy for Prelims will go go a long way in ensuring success in Prelims. However as mentioned earlier modify any of the above points to suit yourself. In the next article we’ll elaborate on how to go about the MAINS examination, with special emphasis on Answer writing.